Jaipur (IANS) | A court in Rajasthan’s Alwar district on Thursday convicted four accused in the 2018 Rakbar Khan mob lynching case. The court acquitted one of the accused as the prosecution failed to prove the case against him.
Additional District Judge Sunil Kumar Goel convicted Naresh, Vijay, Paramjeet and Dharmendra under sections 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 304 IPC (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder).
The court gave benefit of doubt to another accused Naval.
It is noteworthy that Khan was lynched to death in 2018 by a mob on suspicion of cattle smuggling, which allegedly included several cow vigilantes.
Dharmendra Yadav, Paramjeet, Vijay Kumar and Naresh Kumar have been convicted under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 341 (wrongful restraint), said special public prosecutor Ashok Sharma. Naval Kishore is acquitted due to insufficient evidence against him.
The maximum punishment could be life imprisonment, he said.
Rakbar (31) was transporting cows on foot along with 32-year-old Aslam Khan on the intervening night of July 20-21, 2018. They were allegedly stopped by villagers at Lalwandi under Ramgarh police station in Alwar.
Rakbar was severely assaulted and died a few hours later, while Aslam managed to escape. He was going to his village Kolgaon in Haryana, about a dozen kilometers away from Lalwandi.
Rakbar’s death sparked outrage in the area, leading Rajasthan’s top police administration, including the then Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, to visit the scene and order a judicial inquiry.
–IANS
